Hijack: A Sgt Major Crane crime thriller (A Sgt Major Crane Novel Book 6)

by Wendy Cartmell

  ‘Stop going on about colours,’ said Crane. ‘Billy has just sent a message,’ and he went on to tell them about the explosives being in the bicycles and that the carriage had been empty of people.

  ‘Thank God,’ breathed Keane as he perched on the edge of the table, the Colonel and Hardwick having taken the nearest chairs.

  ‘Should we let Kourash know, that we know, that no one’s hurt?’ wondered Booth, looking at Keane, as sanity returned to the room.

  But it was Crane who answered. ‘No way. He might realise we have inside information that could only come from someone on the train. No. I won’t have it. It will put Billy at risk. Come on, sir. Please?’ Crane was prepared to grovel to a superior officer if it got him what he wanted. But he wouldn’t make a habit of it.

  The Colonel looked away from the screen to be met by beseeching looks from Crane and Dudley-Jones. As the telephone link to the train began to ring, Booth nodded his head in agreement. ‘Okay, Keane, pretend we don’t know what’s going on.’

  As Keane rushed to answer the phone, the Colonel looked Crane square in the face. ‘You do realise we have to block all mobile phone transmissions from the train now, don’t you?’

  Crane held Booth’s stare. But realised he had to concede that now. He’d fought against that course of action for the past 24 hours. Not only to enable Billy to send and receive messages, but also so that the intelligence boys could monitor any phone calls the terrorists made.

  ‘But,’ Crane stalled.

  ‘No buts, Crane. The speech about monitoring phone calls won’t work. Kourash hasn’t made any. We’ve no choice. We can’t risk Kourash setting off any more bombs. I’m ordering the mobile phone signals to be blocked.’

  ‘Um, sir?’ Dudley-Jones sounded uncertain and as Crane and the Colonel turned to look at him, his face was yet again beginning to flush with embarrassment.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I don’t, um, think it will help.’

  ‘It won’t help? Of course it will, without the mobile phone network Kourash can’t blow up anymore bicycles.’

  ‘Yes he can, sir. I’ve just had word through. None of the mobile networks were used to trigger the explosion. Kourash must have a secure link, set up just for that purpose.’

  13:15 hours

  Kourash replaced the telephone receiver, a look of pure joy on his face. He had done it. He was winning! He knew the authorities were taking him seriously now. He’d known violence was the only language these people understood. After all, he’d learned his lessons well at the Mosque and at the training ground. It irritated him that his fellow hijackers didn’t share the same view. They had wanted everything to be low key. He laughed at their ignorance. No guns. No violence. No killing. That was their edict and it just wouldn’t have worked. He needed to speak the international language of terrorism for anyone to take him seriously and that’s precisely what he had done.

  Although he hadn’t got to the killing stage just yet. He hadn’t told the stupid man who called himself a negotiator if he’d killed anyone in the explosion. Simply left it to Keane’s imagination. Which he was sure would be working over-time now. He envisaged Keane as a dried up, wrinkled prune of a man, unable to make any decisions for himself. Pulled and jerked like a marionette by his masters in Government. The masters who had seriously under estimated Kourash.

  The conversation he’d just had with Keane had underlined his victory. Keane had told him, in a broken voice, that he was sorry that nothing had happened to make Kourash’s demands come true. But that he was sure the authorities would do everything they could now, to put pressure on President Karzai and ensure, at the very least, the release of his brother.

  Not wanting to appear easily convinced, Kourash had put another deadline in place of two hours. In two hours he wanted, if nothing else, confirmation from the President personally that arrangements were being made to release some prisoners.

  He wanted to share his victory with somebody. He fleetingly thought about his fellow comrades and immediately dismissed them. They were fast becoming nothing but pawns in his grand plan and the overtures of friendship he had made to them, were being exposed for what they were worth. Nothing. He had used them, recruited them because he needed support. Made them feel they were vital elements in his plan, when in reality they weren’t.

  No, he would share this moment with Emma. She would understand. He had always been attracted to western women. Liked their independence, their forthrightness. Saw it as a challenge, he supposed, and idly wondered how long it would take him to break Emma. To make her fall so far under his spell that she would do his bidding without question and see him as her leader and her protector. He smiled at the thought of her subservience and enjoyed for a moment the sexual stirrings brought on by the vision. Yes, he would call for Emma. He was ready for her.

  13:20 hours

  After that fiasco, Crane knew they had no choice but to storm the train and do it as soon as possible. Various plans were being poured over by the Chiefs of Staff Committee and pitched to COBRA. Crane and the Colonel favoured the only plausible scheme to their mind, a night raid, or rather early morning raid. When the hijackers least expected it. In those early morning hours when the body really hadn’t much of an option but to take the rest it needed. When sleep was deepest, so anyone being rudely awakened by an attack would be disadvantaged, befuddled and disorientated. They would lose precious seconds before they reacted, as they tried to make sense of the chaos around them.

  But at the end of the day it was the decision of those far more experienced than he was in such matters. Crane wasn’t a strategist, an expert in mounting rescue missions. He was an expert in catching criminals and knew when to admit his limitations. While he was waiting for the decision to come down from COBRA, he wandered into Keane’s small room, where he found him staring at the telephone, the lone instrument silent for the moment.

  ‘You alright?’ he asked what was clearly a stupid question. Keane looked haggard and harried, pushed and pulled between the two warring factions. Trying his best in the face of an impossible task. As an answer, Crane simply got thrown a look.

  ‘Sorry, idiotic question I know. But really, Keane, why do you do this? How can you take the strain?’

  Keane smiled weakly at Crane. ‘I must admit that every time I do this, I end up losing a little more of myself. It’s guilt, I suppose. Why I keep doing it.’

  ‘Guilt? What the hell do you have to be guilty about?’

  Keane got to his feet and went to stare out of the small window, his back to Crane. But he continued talking. ‘In my first job as a negotiator, I was full of myself. To the point of arrogance, really. I’d finished my degree, done my training with the police and was on the graduate fast track program. ‘Oh yes,’ Keane turned back to Crane, ‘I thought I was the dog’s bollocks. No one could teach me anything. I was going to make a name for myself as some sort of stellar negotiator. The man who could talk anyone down.’

  ‘I guess you don’t feel like that anymore?’

  ‘No. Not since that first job.’

  ‘The first one?’

  ‘Yep. A hostage situation. A man had barricaded himself into his house with his family, brandishing a shotgun threatening to kill his wife and two kids.’ Keane turned away from Crane again.

  Crane decided to keep his mouth shut. If Keane wanted to confide in him, he would. He wouldn’t need any prompting.

  After taking a deep breath, Keane said, ‘I got the kids out. But not the wife. The bloke killed her and then himself. So I failed.’

  ‘But if you got the kids out, why do you think you failed?’

  ‘Because I got their mother killed. After seeing the look on the children’s faces, their anguish, their fear, as they were led away by a social worker. They’d gone from having two parents to being orphans in the blink of an eye. Pushed into a social services system that wouldn’t care about them. That’s why I feel guilty.’

  ‘Keane. It wasn’t your faul
t. It was the man’s fault. He was the one who pulled the trigger, not you.’

  ‘Then why does it feel like I did?’

  Crane didn’t know what to say to that and was glad of the call from the Colonel, telling them to get back in the room on the double.

  The Colonel drew himself up to his full height and said, ‘The Prime Minister has made a decision, based on the advice of the Chiefs of Staff Committee. There is to be a night raid on the train.’

  ‘When?’ asked Crane.

  ‘Tonight, if possible, but it depends on the weather. There’s a cold front on the way, bringing with it wind and rain. The cloud cover will ensure no moonlight and the storm will dampen the sound of the lads going in. It’s our best chance and the Prime Minister wants this over and done with as soon as possible.’

  Crane and Keane nodded in agreement.

  ‘So I just keep on bluffing and blustering, then?’ said Keane.

  ‘Afraid so,’ Booth said. ‘I know you’ve got a bloody awful job and you’re doing the best you can, Keane, but you’ll never be able to talk him into letting the hostages go. You do know that?’

  ‘Of course, sir. I understand that, basically, Kourash hasn’t any idea what he’s doing. Any suggestion that he could take on the might of the British Government was nothing more than a childish dream. He can’t be allowed to carry on like this, with the whole world watching his and our every move. Thinking we would accede to his demands is nothing more than a fantasy.’

  ‘And an idealistic young man with a deadly fantasy is an extremely dangerous one,’ chipped in Crane.

  ‘Quite so,’ agreed Booth. ‘So our job now is to keep everything as calm as we can, until the inevitable. From the minute he pulled the emergency cord on that bloody train, Kourash left us no choice. That simple act signed his death warrant.’

  13:30 hours

  Emma glanced up from her book as Billy re-entered the carriage from the toilet, where he seemed to go a lot. She vaguely wondered why, but then dismissed him, much preferring to think about Kourash. Using her literary analytical mind to dissect his character and relating it to ‘In Cold Blood’, she thought he had factions of both Smith and Hicock in his personality. He had the friendliness of Smith, together with the ‘little boy lost’ facet that was so endearing. On the other hand, he also had the ‘strutting cock’ attitude frequently shown by Smith during his incarceration. If Capote thought the two killers were difficult to understand, she wondered what he would have made of Kourash.

  The constant bombardment from Smith to Capote in terms of phone calls and letters, begging for his support and intervention in his case, reminded Hazel of Kourash’s demands. His need to see her on her own. His desire to explain himself. Wanting her to understand his cause and his request for her to tell it to the world if it all went wrong. Would she be able to do him justice, she wondered? It seemed obvious that he and his fellow hijackers felt passionate about their cause. Which, rationally on the surface at least, seemed a good one. There were indeed many prisoners in Bagram Detention Centre held without charge, just as in Guantanamo Bay, but it didn’t necessarily compute that they were innocent. But what if they were? What if there were more detainees like Kourash’s brother, all going through a living hell? She had only been on the train two days and was already beginning to get cabin fever. It was the lack of liberty that was doing it. To see the Dales spread out around them when she went to talk to Kourash, brought it home to her that she couldn’t just open the door and walk out.

  She wasn’t particularly bored, being able to tune out her surroundings and work on her dissertation based on Capote’s book. But it was beginning to get harder to do that. Shouting, shooting, crying, helicopters overhead, were all conspiring to make her fearful and disconcerted. It was difficult to retain her equilibrium under such conditions. She’d tried to bond with Peggy and Hazel, but both women were older than her and had that maternal instinct to mother everyone, particularly Charlie. Emma had none of those feelings, she was far too young for those. But she recognised it left her a little isolated.

  She looked at the window she couldn’t see the Dales through and saw Kourash’s image projected onto the black paper. She wondered when he would next call for her. At least he was interested in her, wanted to talk to her and maybe wanted more... she’d just have to wait and see what happened on the ‘maybe more’ front. A frisson of electricity pulsed through her body at the thought.

  14:00 hours

  When Crane went out for a cigarette break, Dudley-Jones followed him.

  ‘I didn’t know you smoked, DJ’ Crane said, expecting the young man to get out a packet of his own particular brand of death.

  ‘I don’t, sir, I just needed to get away. I’m being bombarded with information and at the moment my brain just can’t take it all in.’

  Indeed the young man did look like he’d been used as a veritable punch bag. As Dudley-Jones took off his glasses to rub his eyes, Crane saw his eyes were rimmed with red, the whites bloodshot with tiny veins skittering all over them, the lids puffed and sore. He couldn’t help feeling sorry for the lad.

  ‘Have the engineers finished looking for any damage to the viaduct from video and aerial photographs?’ Crane asked.

  ‘Yes, sir. It’s still intact. No damage that they can see. The rails are buckled, obviously, but there doesn’t appear to be any cracks in the structure itself.’

  ‘Thank God for that.’

  ‘Yes, well, I don’t think it could be easily broken. It took four years and a third of the workforce to build the viaduct. The stones they used are each two cubic metres in size and the viaduct was built in blocks of six arches for strength and safety. Apparently, every sixth pier is a wider one which gives stability to the structure. So if we had lost or damaged an arch, we’d lose six, but no more. Not all 24.’

  ‘Well that’s good news,’ said Crane, but Dudley-Jones only managed a weak smile in reply. ‘Come on, what’s bothering you?’ Crane asked.

  ‘In general? Or in particular?’

  ‘Either, I guess.’

  ‘Well, it’s this social media stuff that’s really bugging me at the moment. Facebook and Twitter posts are spreading information about the state of Bagram Detention Centre, which in itself is whipping up support for the hijackers. People are agreeing with their stand. Calling the detention centre a disgrace. Popping up all over the place are stories from families who have a relative incarcerated there, saying they are innocent. They’ve not done anything wrong. And of course that means the media are picking up juicy bits of information and spreading the word. There seems to be a competition at the moment between the television stations, as to who can get the most awful, gut wrenching story about an innocent detainee.’

  ‘Dear God,’ breathed Crane. ‘But what about the other side of the story? The hostages’ families must be going through hell. Aren’t they being interviewed as well?’

  ‘Of course they are, but they’re not as good a news story. People crying is losing its appeal and anyway, we’re keeping them away from the media as much as possible. At the moment, the media want fire and brimstone and that’s what the other side are giving them. All that screeching, ranting and raving. You know how it is. I’m afraid they are swaying the tide of public opinion in favour of the hijackers.’

  ‘So what can we do to stop it?’ Crane’s hand went up to his face to subconsciously scratch at his scar.

  ‘We’ve got to find a way of changing the tide. Get more support for the #releasethehostages campaign. Find a good angle to feed into Twitter and Facebook. That’s as good a place to start as any. All the major newspapers and television stations are monitoring Twitter very closely and putting pictures of live twitter feeds into their programmes.’

  ‘Any ideas as to how we can do that?’ Crane needed Dudley-Jones’ knowledge. He was definitely out of his depth when it came to social media and needed some guidance.

  ‘Well, I guess we need to get a media mogul on our side.’

/>   ‘A media mogul?’

  ‘Yes, someone who owns newspapers and television stations, get them to concentrate the efforts of their reporters into a #releasethehostages campaign.’

  Crane shook a cigarette out of his box and lit it. His actions automatic, as his thoughts were elsewhere.

  ‘Thanks, DJ,’ he said. ‘You’ve been very helpful,’ and he wandered off along the station platform, a plan beginning to emerge, like a genie appearing out of the smoke from his cigarette. By the time the smoke dispersed, Crane had a plan. But would he have enough time to implement it, before the train was stormed? The only person who could answer that question at the moment was the Colonel so Crane made his way back to the waiting room.

  Swapping the pure air of the Yorkshire Dales for the despondent fug in the station building, Crane walked through the door and over to Booth, who appeared to have gotten a second wind. A half-hour break for a quick sandwich and a shower, had clearly helped Booth’s disposition, which Crane figured meant he had a better chance of pulling his scheme off.

  ‘Can I have a word, please, sir?’ Crane interrupted the Colonel’s watching of the latest news bulletins.

  ‘What? Oh, it’s you, Crane, come on then, spit it out.’

  ‘Well, sir, I think I’ve a plan to help change public opinion and ensure the country is behind the idea of the forces going in and rescuing the hostages when they do.’

  ‘At the moment that doesn’t seem likely. Even though an hour ago he was all gung-ho and go in as soon as possible, the Prime Minister, for once, is actually bothered about public opinion and has now advised the Chiefs of Staff Committee that he can’t authorise a rescue mission at the moment. Looks like he’s actually being bullied into taking into account of what the people want, or at least think they want. For too long his reputation has been sullied by accusations of not understanding what real people’s lives are like. So for some reason he’s decided that this is the issue he can hang his hat on and become a ‘man of the people’ or some such gibberish. Even though privately he wants a rescue mission to be launched as soon as possible.’